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AUSTRALIAN telcos are overcharging customers for data they haven't used due to a "technical inability" to distinguish if the data sent to a customer has actually been received.

Compounding the issues is the fact that most Australian telcos have slashed the amount of data on offer for most plans compared to last year.

This is common to all mobile networks.

The issue has come to light following the publication of a research paper by University of California, Los Angeles professor Chunyi Peng, who found telcos generally count data usage correctly, but customers who use their device in areas with weak signal strength or to stream audio or video are often overcharged.

Optus and Vodafone confirmed the issues affected them, while Telstra said it had protocols in place to protect overcharging but wouldn't guarantee they worked 100 per cent of the time.